Glinda Hall, UA-Fort Smith
Are We Being Supersized?
In this assignment, Freshman English 1203 students will go through the writing process in producing a Causal Analysis/Evaluation three page essay.
Students will be shown the documentary Super Size Me, written by and starring Morgan Spurlock and his thirty-day McDonald’s diet. Students will take notes, brainstorm, and web ideas/issues as they watch the movie.
Students will be asked to pay particular attention to Spurlock’s claims regarding a causal relationship between our diets and our nation’s health and increasing obesity. Students will then choose a related topic or one that they have noted from the movie, research said topic, produce an outline, a draft, and finally a final formal essay.
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Rigor:
 This assignment involves each step of the writing process, therefore building on several composition goals, such as: developing a manageable topic and thesis statement, compiling valid and credible outside sources, and organizing information into a coherent formal essay. Not only is content important, but following the assignment in explaining a causal relationship and presenting its causes and effects becomes a critical objective in producing this paper.
 The students will also have to incorporate outside sources to support their claims. They will also need to exhibit correct parenthetical citations, a Works Cited page, and generally show a working knowledge of MLA format.
Relevance:
 The movie Super Size Me is an entertaining, highly relatable documentation of Morgan Spurlock’s experiences investigating not only
McDonald’s fast food, but our society’s views on food, diet, health, and weight, but our nation’s food industry, health care, and politics involved.
 Students will be able to choose from a wide-range of related topics, again all of them emphasizing a causal relationship, and forcing students to understand the complexity of such issues.
 In researching causal relationships, it enables students to realize the need to gather pertinent information from multiple perspectives, in order to address a topic’s complexity. Issues generally do not tend to follow

linear or even chronological causal relationships, most tend to resemble webbings.
 Whether we personally choose to eat fast food, shop at grocery powerhouses, buy only name-brand products, never read labels on processed foods, or only buy organic, locally produced foods, students will become aware of the importance in becoming well-informed, educated consumers. Students will also become aware of the many different entities contributing to our views, beliefs, and behaviors as consumers.
Causal Analysis:
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Before beginning this topic, students will read through the textbook chapter on causal relationships. Students will be asked to determine what determines a causal relationship and what doesn’t. For example: washing your car does not determine when or if it rains. Students will also become aware of the fact that causal relationships are not simple and involve multi-layers as well as multiple factors. Individually or within groups, students will do in-class exercises where they will be asked to brainstorm and outline/list causal relationships with many diverse topics, such as: crime, high school dropout rates, success in college, teen violence, etc.
The text lists several methods for analyzing causes. The students will look at each method and the previous examples to determine causal relationships. The methods are: 1) common factor method, 2) single difference method, 3) concomitant variation, 4) process of elimination.
Once these methods are discussed, most students begin to recognize that in some form and in other subject areas, these methods have been used before. Again, in-class work whether individually or within a group would allow students to discuss how these methods fit many of the examples listed in the text and in class.
This preliminary work then leads to a discussion of the assignment for their causal relationship essay. These preliminary exercises can take one to two 50 minute classes, depending on the involvement of the students and the discussions that could possibly follow after addressing particular topics.

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Assignment:
 Prewriting/brainstorming activities before students watch Super Size
Me. Such as: Asking them to think about their own fast food eating habits. Having students compile a food log of what they’ve eaten over the past several days or possibly even a week, listing where and what they’ve eaten. Then having the students do some preliminary research to discover the nutritional content of the food they’re eating. Asking them if they read product nutrition labels. Why are people/children becoming dangerously overweight? What are the consequences of childhood obesity? This introduction to the topics can take up to a 50 minute class period.
 Super Size Me is approximately a two hour movie, with several extras on the DVD that are also worth watching. This is a lot of time to take out of class, therefore I ask students to take notes, and I stop the movie several times to discuss particular issues raised.
 As students are watching Super Size Me, they will be taking notes on possible topics/issues for their own papers, as well as any questions, or points of discussion to address after the movie. Allowing class time for this, may lead to the movie taking part of another class period, but as long as the discussions are helpful to the students’ essays, the time is worth taking.
 After the movie, I also allow for class time to discuss issues and address questions the students may have. I find that this time to discuss is critical for many students in helping them generate ideas for their own essays.
 Possible topics for a causal relationship paper:
Corn lobbyists wield considerable power in Washington, therefore why does our food industry feel compelled to include by-products of corn, such as high fructose corn syrup, in processed foods when these additives have been studied and tested as being harmful when consumed in large amounts.
Spurlock’s Super Size Me did in fact show a causal relationship between fast food and obesity, so as with the tobacco industry being held accountable for health problems from its products, shouldn’t fast food companies also be held accountable. Who should pay for the obesity issues our medical/health industry faces?
These are only two examples. We will also look at examples that would not make good essay topics, such as: bad food is bad for you, or obese

people need to just not eat as much and exercise more – these are not debatable issues, it is an over-simplification of a complex issue.
 Students will then organize an outline with a thesis statement and begin compiling outside sources. This outline receives feedback from me, as well as peer editing in class.
 Students will turn in a first draft, and will receive a grade based on MLA format and following the assignment. Students will receive their drafts back with feedback. The feedback will focus on how well the students are explaining the causal relationship.
 While students are working on their outlines and drafts, we will spend class time reading and discussing other causal analysis essays. One such essay appears in their composition textbook titled, “McNasty” and critiques McDonald’s, as well as Taco Bell and Wendy’s, attempts at healthier food items on their menus. Other readings may address our nation’s food industry or our health care system.
 If time allows, having students read in full or excerpts of Fast Food
Nation may also lead to further discussion and the generating of other topics and ideas.
 Students will then turn in a final, three-page formal essay which defines and explains a causal relationship and analyzes its cause/effect components. Students will also include an evaluation of said causal relationship. (Evaluative essays were assigned earlier, so some possible review time for this would be beneficial.)
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